I have very good working relations with the CBI: Pradeep Kumar, Central Vigilance Commissioner

Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) Pradeep Kumar talks little, at least at public forums. He has had limited media interactions both as defence secretary and now as CVC.

Kumar's inclination to remain behind the scenes is in sharp contrast to the flamboyance of his peers such as former CAG and his IAS batchmate Vinod Rai or CBI director Ranjit Sinha. With the CVC's communication channels not going beyond the routine releases of statistics on corrupt officers, the number of unanswered questions is piling up.

Does the CVC have an uneasy relationship with the CBI? Or why did the earlier government insist on appointing a special director in CBI who was not recommended by the panel headed by the CVC? And, then, is the CVC's mandate of superintendence over the CBI under threat despite the Supreme Court asking it to monitor the CBI in select high-profile cases such as 2G or coal block allocation?

To get those answers and many more, ET Magazine caught up with Kumar for a rare interview in New Delhi's Satarkta Bhawan, which houses the CVC's headquarters. In a free-wheeling chat that lasted over an hour, Kumar set the record straight: "I have very good working relations with the CBI.

Every month, a structured review meeting is held in my room. Senior CBI officers, including its director, attend it." Kumar, whose term ends next month, admits there is a need to improve the commission's investigative skills in an era in which transactions in big-volume corruption cases such as 2G and coal block allocation are transnational in character. Excerpts:

You have been the CVC for almost three years now. Has your idea of corruption changed in these years?

The high and mighty, and rich and powerful in the country have realized for the first time that they can't escape the long arm of the law. The so-called power club where one helps out another in distress is getting paralyzed. We have seen who all had to go to jail.

All institutions like the Supreme Court, CAG, CVC and the CBI have a role in that. Then, media pressure, including social media and RTI [Right to Information Act] have helped bring in that change. At a personal level, it's quite challenging. The real challenge has been to ensure that the honest can work fearlessly and the dishonest find no place to hide.

But will such punitive action help in reducing corruption?

There are two types of corruption that we have been dealing with. One is coercive and petty corruption. An ordinary citizen who needs a driving licence, death certificate or electricity connection from a department often encounters this type of corruption. If bribes are not paid, there is a possibility of administrative delays or even harassment. At times, rules themselves are so cumbersome that they actually help the corrupt.

Here punitive action is important, but that's not enough. China, for example, has stringent anti-corruption laws, but it's just a notch above India in terms of honesty in public life. So we need to go beyond punitive measures. Our focus has been to work on reduction of discretion, simplification of rules and use of technology. E-payment, online reservation of railway tickets etc are effective in curbing petty corruption in some places. The developed nations have already overcome this problem of petty corruption. But we have a long way to go.

What about the second type of big volume corruption?

It's the CVC which referred to the CBI the cases like Commonwealth Games and irregularities in coal block allocation. In those grand corruption cases, exemplary punishment is a must. But the investigation is difficult here. The transactions in those cases are transnational in character. There has been round-tripping of the money flows. We need to upgrade our investigative skills for that. Auctioning, e-procurement and e-tracking are some of the ways that will help stop recurrence of such big corruption cases.

There have been reports that relations between the CVC and the CBI have not been very cordial in recent times. Is that true?

Let me make it clear that I have very good working relations with the CBI. Every month, a structured review meeting is held in my room. Senior CBI officers, including its director, attend it. Two vigilance commissioners from our side attend the meeting. Sometimes such a meeting goes on for two and a half hours. The ongoing cases are being reviewed there. We always pre-decide the focus area for our meeting.

On the day we take up cases related to politicians, we don't review corruption cases involving officials. On another day, we take up only cases that are related to PSUs, public sector banks and insurance companies. But in case of the appointment of CBI's special director, the differences between the CVC and the CBI came out openly? That's something the court has been looking into. I should not comment.